


Feast of Friends

by TheBitterHedgehog



Category: Time's Apprentice - Fandom
Genre: Betrayal, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24762421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBitterHedgehog/pseuds/TheBitterHedgehog
Summary: A day in the life of our favorite revolutionary crew.Mara, having betrayed the crew’s location to the Empress for the Time God, starts to miss what she already has.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Feast of Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [articulatelyComposed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/articulatelyComposed/gifts).



> This is a fic to celebrate the 1st year anniversary of the release of Time's Apprentice. The anniversary was April 27th, but I got caught up in schoolwork and my job so this is almost two months late.
> 
> Time’s Apprentice is a musical influenced by the ancestor trolls in Homestuck. It is owned and created by articulatelyComposed. It has a great story and amazing music and I highly recommend you check it out! 
> 
> The full show is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtvNG-2xLEU  
> The soundtrack is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvxUXNWXoDI&list=PLYMSSSp5S9ZV3eOdsKaOSjTAn5pAXDgIP
> 
> This is technically NOT a Homestuck fic. This is a fic of a musical based off of Homestuck. Fic-of-a-fic then? 
> 
> Summary of what has just happened in the musical (for story context): Mara is the time servant of the God of Time. He uses her to manipulate timelines to streamline his plans for the universe. She has been sent by him to have Kiran’s (The Signless in Homestuck) revolution fail. While setting up the revolution’s eventual demise, she befriends Kiran and his loyal followers. As she grows more attached to them she starts to regret her actions. However, helpless to the power of Doc Scratch, Mara has no choice but to go forward with his plans and turn Kiran over to the empire. Having been notified by Mara of his location, the empress and her troops will be arriving in three weeks to Kiran’s village to snuff out his rebellion. Kiran and his followers have no idea what she has done or that the empress is coming. Mara stays for the last three weeks of Kiran’s freedom.

Your name is Rosa Maryam. You are a tall jade-eyed woman who ran away from the caverns to raise a mutant boy with blood red eyes destined to change everything. You are convinced that once he is old enough this mutant will bring about a fairer, more just society through voicing his visions of a better world to the suffering populace. He will proselytize society to veer away from hemospectrum prejudices and violent tendencies. Peace will be the dominating trait of your new world, and no one will ever want for food or safety or kindness ever again. You will all become each other’s daily bread, the everlasting nourishment for souls and minds. 

But for now, you are just another stalk of wheat in a field. You cannot show that you are a different kind of ripe, that you have the potential to be made into anything you want. You must hide from the reapers and remain rooted in the rest of the field. Otherwise you will be cut too soon and burned to the ground. That is why you and the mutant –– named Kiran –– have crafted a modest home for yourselves in a cave near a village far away from the capital. Over the years, like long frozen ground thawing in a creeping springtime, you have slowly learned to trust others outside of yourself and your –– now fine young adult –– child and have begun to open your home. Now, after many sweeps, with Kiran testing his prophecies on the inhabitants of the village, you have baptized your cave with an open-door policy. It is now used as a safehouse for fellow revolutionaries loyal to Kiran and your cause. Whether they stay only for a meal or a week doesn’t matter; you have learned from Kiran that all people matter, and that wearing your heart on your sleeve is well worth the risk of having it ripped apart. 

Currently, at this moment, you are trying to make dinner for said revolutionaries, but are having some difficulty with the ingredients. 

“Lin, how fresh did you say these sun mushrooms were again?”

You and one of the revolution’s earliest and most loyal followers, Lin, stand in the area designated as the ‘kitchen.’ In reality, it was just a naturally circular area where you had carved a deep enough groove to build a fireplace. The fire is currently not lit, but some followers have hung lanterns along all the cave’s walls from hooks. The lantern light gives the room a soft evening glow like in a fancy restaurant. A couple of crudely constructed wooden closets serve as cabinets for storing food. In the corner lay the rolled up blankets and bedspreads of followers who would spend the night here, warming themselves by the dying embers and the body heat of their neighbors. 

Lin smiles, showing off her sharp, crooked teeth. “Picked fresh three days ago!” she chirps. Lin tucks her long, frizzy black bangs behind her ears. She needs a haircut. You bite back a grimace, remembering the chaos of tying her down for her last haircut and dreading the repeat in the near future.

You examine the small fungi pinched between your fingers. A pale yellow mushroom the size of your palm with a turned-up top like an inside-out umbrella. This type was known for having brown spots now and again, but the current five bushels of mushroom next to you had circles half the size of a nickel rather than pinheads, and the brown was a rich copper instead of a light tan. 

“And where did you say you got them again?”

“Uumm. . . ooo! I remember! Down by the valley, near the river with the purple flower field and the real big red trees!”

You nod and continue to examine the mushroom. When you squeeze the stem the flesh snaps back. Good. You flick the top and it doesn’t budge. Also good. You bring the mushroom to your green lips and hazard a tiny nibble off the edge. You gag and spit it out. 

Lin’s olive-green eyes widen. She grabs a mushroom and sniffs it, makes a sour face, then shoves the entire thing in her mouth. She makes a noise and spits it on the ground. “Yuck!” She spits some more and wipes her tongue on her sleeve. “Yuck! Yuck! What happened to these?!”

You resist the urge to spit more and say, “I’m not quite sure. It could be a number of things really. My best bet is that we simply waited too long to use them and missed a step in preserving them properly, resulting in our current situation.” You grab the broom used to sweep up ashes and flick the mushroom remains into the fireplace.

Lin’s lip wobbles. “Sorry Miss Rosa.” She kicks a pebble across the floor. It bonks into one of the cabinets. “If you want I could pick more for you?” 

You smile and say gently, “It’s not your fault Lin. I appreciate you wanting to get more for me, but I would rather you stay behind today. I need you and some of the others to help with getting us some meat for dinner tonight and to smoke for our trip at the end of the week. Could you send 204 and Mara to go? He mentioned that he could use more practice hiking and Mara could use something to keep her busy, she’s been looking a tad melancholy lately.”

“She has been in a bit of a rut,” Lin mumbles. She scampers off to complete your request. You sigh and look at the five big bushels of rotten sun mushrooms. Just what are you going to do with these?

  
  


*

Your name is Mara Megido. You are many things. You are the girl dressed in lime, an immortal, a servant, a kidnapper, a murderer, recently a friend, and more recently a traitor. 

But you try to forget those other things. Right now, you are a mushroom gatherer.

You and 204 complete the woodland hike from the cave to the field Lin had described. It takes twice as long as it should have because along the forest trail 204 kept tripping over protruding tree roots and bumpy rocks and once an unreasonably big acorn. The poor boy would fall hard onto his side or face, cursing his lack of depth perception and adjusting his special goggles every time he got back up. A few times he begrudgingly let you help him back to his feet, joining him in wiping dirt off his pants or picking pebbles out of his palms. 

Regardless, there is still plenty of daylight left to burn when you eventually reach the field. At the end of the woodline the gentle green slopes of the valley begin. Cutting in the middle at the bottom of the two slopes is a small stream, glittering in the bright sunshine. Butterflies float on the gentle, grass scented breeze and glide over the field of purple flowers that swarm the hillside on the opposite side of the stream you are on. 

After taking a moment to drink in your surroundings and let the wind brush your sweaty hair away from your faces, you and 204 carefully make your way through the knee-high wild grass to the stream. You bunch the end of your skirt in fists as you wade across the stream. You go over first, and watch 204 stagger and wobble through the running water while you wring out your socks on the bank. 

You walk together into the flower field. You discuss how you want to approach this and decide to only pick half the hill, with him taking the lower, flatter part and you taking the higher, less even area and then meet in the middle. 

Because you each need to focus on pushing aside the flower bulbs to find the mushrooms, the silence falls naturally between the two of you and is comfortable. You work quietly like this, bent over with the sun warming your back and your fingers dusted in dirt, for a while. 

When your basket is about half full, you hear 204 groan. You look over to see his basket fall from his grip, spilling mushrooms everywhere, and bring the palm of his hand to his forehead. His knees buckle and you drop your basket as you hurry to him, calling out if he’s okay.

“I need to sit,” he hisses as you reach him and guide him to the ground. “It’s another headache.”

“Do you need some water?”

204, now bent over his knees while clutching his head, nods. You hear him moan as you rush down to the stream and plunge your flask into the cool, clear water. You watch the wobbly reflection of yourself get destroyed from the angry stream of air bubbles pouring from the lip of the flask. 

Arm dripping, you rush back to him and hand him the wet flask. He thanks you and slams down half the contents, gulping loudly.

When he comes back up for air he looks at you, but he doesn’t meet your gaze. “Sorry,” he says with a higher pitch than normal, which you have heard enough to know he is embarrassed. You lower yourself to sit cross-legged near him.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say. “It’s not like you can help it.”

204 undoes the first two buttons of his shirt and sighs in content as the breeze hits his skin. From where you’re sitting you can see a band of thick, sunken scar along his neck, the skin shining unnaturally. Brighter, thinner scars start above it and stretch straight down over his collarbone. From fingernails, you realize, clawing at a too tight neck shackle.

204 notices where you’re looking and glances down. He blushes and takes a hand off the flask to cover his neck.

You rip your gaze over to the river. Shimmering diamond lights race down the valley atop the water. You clear your throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare––”

“It’s alright,” he says softly, buttoning his shirt back with one hand. 

But now you’re flustered, and you really can’t stop talking. Not until you feel you’ve explained yourself at least. 

“I know you’re not really ready to talk about all that happened to you when––before we met, I mean, not ready to talk about the slave thing yet ––”

“No, I’m not.” 204 brings his knees to his chest and seems to curl into himself more, like a beetle hiding from the sun.

This just makes you more flustered. “So we won’t! We totally won’t! It was horrible and we won’t make you! We’ll keep you covered up. And we’ll keep working on those goggles to help you walk better. But we’ll never force you to talk about it, never ever nev ––”

“Please stop making this weird,” he groans. He presses his hands to his ears, a feeble attempt to block you out. The knuckles on the hand still holding the flask flash white. 

You open your mouth, about to say more, but stop and squeak out a “sorry” instead.

The two of you sit in a long, awkward quiet moment. You worry your lip and pull up grass with both hands. 204 stays bent over with his head between his knees and takes tiny sips from the flask. 

A fish jumps in the river and makes a little splash, disrupting the diamonds for a moment. An orange butterfly lands on top of a flower between the two of you and takes a long drink of nectar before flying away. 

“What’s been up with you lately?” asks 204. He stares into the flask like he is waiting for something to float up from the clean bottom. 

You had gotten into the whole pulling grass business. He had taken you out of your focus. “What?”

“You’ve seemed sad. Why?”

You frown and look down to your feet. You see a loose thread near the toe of your boot and pick at it. “Have I?” you say airly. You try to sound like you haven’t noticed as well.

204 shrugged. “Dunno. Lin noticed. She told me when she sent me off to do this. She said Rosa noticed too. Made me think back on the past few days. They’re right. You’ve been different.”

You feel yourself stiffen as your heart beat picks up. “I’m not, I––I’ve just been thinking. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“Like?”

You gulp. Your mouth tastes bitter. Oh, if he only knew everything that was on your mind right now. The best you can give him is a partial truth, a peek into the pandora’s box of doom and gloom and God of Time that has taken residency in your brain. “. . . The trip this week.”

204 lifts his head at that. He sits up a little straighter. “Why?”

“It’s just . . .” You feel your throat starting to constrict. You gulp again and force yourself to keep talking. “We don’t know what to expect. For the first time in a long time I don’t know what will happen next, and it––” your throat starts to feel tight again and you swallow before finishing in a hoarse whisper, “ . . . it scares me. ” 

204 grunts. He doesn’t talk for a while. You feel your eyes start to water. Refusing to cry, you look up at the cloudless sky. A bird passes over you but you can’t make out what kind it is, your vision is watery and it is too high up for you to distinguish special features. It just looks like a blurry shadow sailing over a stinging yellow orb and haze of blue. Your eyes ache but you force the stupid tears back because dammit, so what if that’s the one unblemished truth you’ve told anyone here, that it scares you to know that no one –– not even the God of Time –– knows what will happen if they were all to be alive a week from now? 

“You know I love you guys, right?” 

You snap your gaze to him. You feel like you just got gut-punched, the air beaten out of you. 

If 204 notices your reaction, he doesn’t act like it. He just nods, resolute, and continues. “You’re family to me. You’ve treated me better than anyone ever has. One day I’ll tell you about my past. I’ll tell you about the slave ship and the generator and blowing up my brain. But only after I know it will never happen to anyone ever again. When I know that everyone is freed. Everyone.” 204 makes direct eye-contact then, and holds it as he continues, “so we’re all gonna stick together till then. And if we’re together, we’ll be ready for whatever comes next. Trust me.” He releases you and tips the flask back to his mouth.

You wipe your eyes and lie in stunned silence as 204 finishes the rest of his water and stands back up. “Okay. I’m better. Let’s finish our work here.”

By the time you fill the rest of your baskets the sun has started to set. The sky an orange glow, 204 takes the lead on the hike back (his goggles can double for flashlights). He doesn’t see the way you keep fiddling with your pocket, the lime green envelope with your master’s orders for his death getting crinkled from your sweaty palm. 

No one had ever told you that you were loved before.

*

You are still Mara. You’re still the traitor, but now it’s nighttime and you’re restless.

You have a spot you like to go to when you want to be alone. A thick log carpeted with spongy green moss, in a small clearing of trees not too far away from the cave. Your log has a black, charred, jagged end, with its broken stump a few feet away. You suspect that lightning had struck the mighty tree down during a storm a long time ago.

The night breeze carries the scent of woodsmoke and roasting meat to you. The gang was hosting a big bonfire. Lin and that other delicate olive-eyed girl who hung around her –– her name rhymes with ‘glass bones’ or something weird like that –– had gone rabbit hunting earlier while you were gone with 204 and galloped back to camp with a heap of them, the bodies already gutted and skinned. With plenty to put aside for travel provisions, and more than enough to feed the handful of people already at the cave, Kiran had traveled to the nearby village and invited the villagers to dinner. A crowd of cave regulars and newcomers hiked up the mountain around sunset to join in. Some of them even brought skewered chicken and goat legs to contribute. Within minutes dinner had turned from a meal to a party. 

You sneaked away as the last of Lin’s rabbits were put over the fire. Ever since you and 204 had returned you’ve been stewing in a slurry of guilt and anxiety. You couldn’t stomach looking at the smiling faces of your friends and feel a bubbly giddiness pool in the pit of you.

Imposters don’t deserve to feel happy.

Over your centuries of service to the God of Time you’ve found that distancing yourself from your assignments made completing them easier. But as you sit in the dark alone, playing with a piece of bread you had snatched (holding something edible made you feel less awkward at these events) and kicking the log with your heels, you don’t feel any better. You keep turning your situation over and over in your head and feel the bad energy grow inside you as you realize just how boxed in you are. There is no way out of this. If you tried to do anything to save any of them, even just one of them, the God of Time would come down and change the timeline to seal their fate in a different way. The punishment you would endure for purposely messing up his plans makes you shiver as you remember how bad your lungs ached from when he took all the oxygen out of your room. The only real friends –– family––you have ever had in your life were about to die and it was  _ all because of the orders on that stupid letter in your pocket from a monster in a lime green suit _ . 

Your fingers subconsciously grab onto the top of the paper when you hear someone call out “Good evening Mara!”

You whip your hand out of your pocket and turn to look at Kiran as he steps into view. 

“Hey Kiran,” you call back. “You’re taking your evening walk alone? You know Rosa doesn’t like when you don’t go with anybody.”

Kiran sighs. “Yes, I am well aware of my mother’s concerns when I choose to venture out alone. However, I dissuaded her of as much worry as I could by informing her that I was going to see you. Thankfully we knew you were close by, or she would have sent a small swarm of followers to accompany me here.” He comes over and sits a respectable distance from you on the log. “We missed your presence at dinner tonight.”

You feel your cheeks heat up and shoot your gaze to your lap. “Yeah, I . . .” you squish the bread between your fingers. It crackles and drops crumbs into your lap. You hope he doesn’t notice that you’re wasting good bread. Another wave of guilt rolls in your stomach, making you grimace. “ . . . wasn’t feeling social.”

He laughs. “I understand. Also watching people eat has to get tiresome after sometime. Do you think you’ll be allowed to eat soon by that awful man?”

You grimace at the mention of the God of time and shake your head. 

You told Kiran and the rest of the crew a screened version of your relationship with the God of Time when you first met them. They’re aware that he is cruel and abusive, that you share both a servile and oddly paternal relationship with him, and that you have no way to get out of being his servant. They know that you have been on a rebellious streak recently and in punishment the God of Time has taken away most of your physical human operations (what he has referred to as “privileges”). The most recent actions he has taken from you is sleeping and eating. He has the power to make your body literally unable to let you rest or process food. It doesn’t exactly hurt, and it’s convenient for meeting the tight schedules of his assignments, but it makes you feel so . . . inhuman. Especially when you’re around other people like the crew. It’s a constant smack in the face reminding you that you are not one of them, and can never be one of them as long as you are under the God of Time’s control. 

“There’s no reason for me to. I haven’t really earned it back yet, so not for a while probably, no.” 

Kiran frowns. “He is a cruel man. I can’t imagine ever treating someone the way he treats you.”

You shrug. “You get used to it.”

“I wish there was a way for you to escape. Are you sure that the move this week won’t throw him off your location or anything?”

“It. . . it doesn’t really work like that. He knows where I am anytime he wants to know.”

The disappointment on his face is tenable. “Ah. I see.”

“Yeah.” You sigh. 

An uncomfortable silence yawns between you two. You hear laughing in the distance, and a wolf howl from somewhere in the mountains. 

Kiran clears his throat awkwardly. “I-I hope I’m not distressing you with my presence when you were seeking some alone time,” he says. “I’m not a bother, am I?”

You quickly shake your head and wave your hands for extra effect. “Oh, not at all, not at all! I just needed to . . . uh. . . some time alone. I was charging up the old social batteries again, doing some thinking, that’s all. I already talked a lot with a lot of people today, ya know?”

Kiran nods. “I know how you feel. Talking can get quite tiresome.” 

“Really?” 

He looks at you surprised. “Of course! Why wouldn’t it?”

“No, it makes sense. It’s just weird to hear it from you.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

You motion to the whole of him. “You’re the talker. The guy’s whose words are supposed to change the world and stuff. Shouldn’t you love talking all the time?”

Kiran laughs. “Yes, I do love to talk, don’t I? You should have seen me at the bonfire. Poor Lin is lucky to still have her ears, I nearly talked the darn things off!” He smiles softly, then sighs a small sigh. “But even ‘the talker’ of a group can’t talk forever. Besides, I enjoy listening to what others have to say. It’s how I learn and grow. And I assure you Mara, my head hasn’t gotten so swollen with my ego that I’ve fallen in love with the sound of my own voice.”

You laugh with him. You like laughing with him. You readjust your seat to face him better, ignoring the sharp bumps of bark poking your thighs. “Yeah, but I thought your visions made you out to be a sort of know-it-all. Either that or you have surprisingly good common sense for someone who constantly runs into danger.”

Kiran quirks a brow playfully. “‘Surprisingly’ good common sense?”

“Dude, you were raised in a cave in the middle of the woods.”

“With Rosa Maryam as my mother.”

“. . . Good point. But still! Talking the way you do in front of all those crowds of people. . . Everytime I see you speak it seems so natural for you. You always seem to know what to say. Like, you were born for this.”

You’re surprised to see the troubled look that crosses Kiran’s face as you say this. He suddenly stands up and says quickly, “And that’s just it, isn’t it Mara?  **I** am born for this. Everyone knows that. I’m the only one born with these visions and that it is my and solely my responsibility to convey them to the people around me.”

Still reeling from the sudden change of mood, you watch him wide-eyed as he continues to speak his mind. He gestures with his hands in a more aggressive manner than usual. His raised voice is stitched with fear and an anger that isn’t directed at you.

“And if I don’t do it right it could mean their death, or worse, crush any hope they could ever have for possibly achieving a better life. It’s such a big responsibility Mara, and while I carry it willing, it scares the absolute hell out of me. Know why? Because no matter how many visions I see, no matter how many times I try to say the right thing, I know that I’ll never have all the right answers. And people need me to know all the right answers! Their survival and dreams of a better life all rest on ME and what I tell them to do! And it . . . it . . .”

He seems to now notice your concerned look and catches himself. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He takes three more deep breaths, then lowers his hands and averts his gaze from you. 

“Forgive me,” he says softly, now calm. “I’ve been a bit overwhelmed lately. I should not have taken it out on you. I’m sorry.”

After a beat you reply, “It’s alright.”

“It’s not,” he says more forcefully. “No matter the circumstance, I should never speak to you like that.”

“Dude, it’s fine, I forgive you. Come sit down.”

Kiran does as he is told and sits back on the log, closer to you this time but still not looking at you. You reach out to place a hand on Kiran’s back. “The move this week has been stressing you out too, huh?” You say while rubbing his back soothingly.

Kiran, still looking down at his feet, nods. 

“So you were blowing off some steam! That’s fine. And I don’t know about you, but I’m honored that I am the chosen recipient for the great Kiran’s hissy fit.”

Kiran snorts through his nose and nods, giggling. You’re reminded of how young he can be. How young he still is. Only a teenager and tasked with turning an entire planet’s society inside-out. 

“‘Hissy fit’ is one word for what happened back there. I would prefer the term ‘constructive rant,’ since I do feel worlds better now.”

“Suuuurrrree. Whatever you want buddy,” He sticks his tongue at you and you laugh.

“Names aside,” he says, “despite what I said, I am excited for the move this week. I can’t wait to meet new people and make new friends and spread more of my word. I just can’t shake off these nuggets of reserve I have for my abilities and the hospitality of the new village. You must remember Mara, this will be the first time I have ever travelled away from this cave or village.” 

You nod. “Yeah, it’s pretty scary. But all we can do is try our best with all this, right? They know you can’t know everything.”

“I wish I could know everything though. I don’t want to make any mistakes with this.”

“Don’t we all?” And as you say that you grimace. The guilt that you had been forcing yourself to forget during this conversation comes back and makes your gut cramp. Because as you say that all you think about is that at the end of the week he will be dead. His followers will be dead. The crew will probably be dead too, or will be dead within a sweep if by some miracle they survive arrest and get sold into slavery to the people they were rebelling against and will die a slower, more humiliating death in the next year or two.

And it’s all your fault. 

And he will never know. No matter how many times he listens.

He snorts again. “Yes, don’t we all.” He laughs softly and nods. Then his tone drops lower, turns older, more pensive. “Don’t we all.” 

The two of you lapse into a natural quiet that neither of you mind steeping in for a while. Crickets and cicadas chirp loudly. You glance up and a shooting star zips past the night sky just as quick as it came. The stars twinkle. The wind is dead and doesn’t stir a branch near you.

“Well, enough of that. Time to move on,” Kiran gets up, stretches, and wipes his hands on his pants. Grinning, he offers a hand for you to take. “Come on. Lin has somehow managed to convince the town sweets owner into giving her the goods to make s’mores. They should be getting ready to make some now. Think you can stomach watching us make some of those? I promise the sight of watching 204 try a marshmellow for the first time will be well worth joining us.”

You force yourself to smile and take his hand. “I can try.”

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to give a shout out to underlanderfromtheoverland, who also wrote a Time's Apprentice fic "Until the Whole World Falls Apart." It tells a great story, has great writing, and does justice to the characters it focuses on. Highly recommend giving it a read after this. 
> 
> Link to story is here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379909 
> 
> Thank you again for reading my fic here! Please leave kudos or comments on what you liked or what I could improve on.


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